The Adventures Of Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass

THE ADVENTURES OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON

SNODGRASS

THE ADVENTURES \\& P
THOMAS JEFFERSON

SNODGRASS

MARK TWAIN

Edited by Charles Honce, with a Foreword by
Vincent Starrett, and a Note on “A Celebrated
Village Idiot” by James O’Donnell Bennett

Chicago* Pascal Covici, Publisher, inc., 1928

Copyright 1927 by
PASCAL COVICI, PUBLISHER, INC.
Printed in U. S. A.

Ref,

This Edition of

THE ADVENTURES OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON SNODGRASS
is limited to

three hundred and seventy-five
numbered copes
of which this is

FOREWORD

yet be of very genuine biographical and bibli-
ographical importance. The gathering of sup-
pressed or forgotten chips from a great man’s
workshop is a pious undertaking understood
and appreciated at least by collectors , and it is
primarily for collectors that such volumes as
the present one are issued. If it is not exactly
buried treasure that the diligence of Mr.
Charles Honce has unearthed, a small but
authentic contribution , at any rate , has been
made to the history of the beginnings of a
genius , and another volume has been added
to the bibliography of Mark Twain. There
is a long gulf between the “ peaceable strang-
er” of the Snodgrass letters and the “ Mysteri-
ous Stranger ” of Clemens’ apogee ; but it is
sufficiently interesting to be able to illustrate ,
by so early an example , the distance between
the comic-strip humor of Twain’s boyhood
and the bitter satire of his age.

FOREWORD

The Snodgrass letter s, it may be admitted ,
are not particularly funny. They illustrate
the sense of humor that, to this day, finds
the utmost in hilarity in a picture of a man
falling off a wagon and saying “Wow!” Ar-
guing from them one would never predict
(( The Mysterious Stranger .” One would not
even predict “ Tom Sawyer .” But one might
predict, say, an “ Innocents Abroad ” and do
the latter work no particular injustice. In
their day, and in Keokuk, Iowa, probably the
Snodgrass letters were very funny indeed.
Does anyone, to-day, other than an occasional
high-school boy, find humor in “ Innocents
Abroad ” or in “ Following the Equator?”
One fears that many do.

But the Snodgrass letters are the work of
the boy Sam Clemens , later to become Mark
Twain, a large figure in American letters ,
and as such they are deserving of their new

ix

FOREWORD

type and of their appearance in fresh and
handsome dress .

In some museum or other y in Havana y if
memory serves y there are y according to the
early Clemens himself > two skulls of Chris-
topher Columbus — “ one when he was a boy
and one when he was a man” To revert to
one’s original figure of speech y there are a
number of skeletons of Mark Twain in the
world . The present one may be regarded as
“one when he was a boy ” It is y of course y a
museum piece y and you may take it or leave
it. That is y you may look at it or move on to
another case. There are other pieces in the
museum.

Vincent Starrett

ADVENTURES OF SNODGRASS

I N T R OP U C T I ON

This little book contains an interesting and
authentic bit of Americana. It holds what
may be considered the first intentional essay
in the role of authorship of Samuel Lang-
horne Clemens. The better known pseudo-
nym was an invention of the still misty
future when the following three travel letters
appeared in the Keokuk (Iowa) Saturday
Post a life-time ago.

While there are records of some earlier at-
tempts from the pen of the humorist — a few
contributions to his brother’s newspaper at
Hannibal, Mo., and a couple of anecdotes
sent to the Philadelphia Saturday Evening
Post — written between the ages of 13 and
18 — these have never been identified. The
three sketches gathered in this volume are
xi

INTRODUCTION

the earliest work of Mark Twain that has
been preserved and are, incidentally, the first
for which he received pay. The Sam Clemens
of twenty, who wrote these letters, is not the
Mark Twain of later years; yet this early
work has guts and gusto, a robust and broad
humor, and a hint of the particular brand of
Twain exaggeration that was later to make
him famous. Crude though it may be, it pos-
sesses a vitality that is not to be denied.

The existence of two of these three articles,
published in the Saturday Post and the Daily
Post, late in 1856 and early in 1857, was
known. Mr. Paine, in his life of Mark
Twain, mentions two of them. He obtained
his information from Thomas Rees, pub-
lisher of the Springfield (Illinois) State
Register, and a son of the publisher of the
old Keokuk Post. By diligent search, the
present editor has unearthed a third. There

xn

INTRODUCTION

may be others. None is included in Twain’s
collected work. That is not the place for
them. Their place is in a volume such as this,
where those friends of Mark Twain who care
to do so may find his first preserved work and,
reading, ponder the unutterable gulf that
separates the colloquial Snodgrass from the
white-haired mystic who wrote “The Mys-
terious Stranger.”

The three letters brought the suddenly
ambitious Clemens $5 each. He had been
working as a printer in Keokuk in the mid-
dle fifties, in his brother Orion’s shop, but
tiring of the routine and unromantic life of
the rule, he decided to seek his fortune in
South America, and, as an afterthought, ar-
ranged with the editor of the Post to con-
tribute letters detailing his experiences on the
way. Even at this early date he had a book in
mind, a diary of his trip, or, as he phrased it,

INTRODUCTION

“Snodgrass’ Dierrea.” The book did not ma-
terialize, but the idea remained. Some ten
years later, after another journey, it resulted
in “The Innocents Abroad.”

One letter came from St. Louis and two
from Cincinnati, which became the terminus
of the projected trip to South America.

Clemens was approaching his twenty-first
birthday when the first letter was printed.
Nearly ten years was to elapse before the
publication of “The Jumping Frog,” the
story that marked the beginning of his fame
as a humorist. It was still later that the au-
thor considered he had made his “debut as
a literary person” with his story of the burn-
ing of the Clipper ship Hornet, published in
Harper’s Magazine in December, 1866. His
trip around the world followed, in 1 867, and
with the appearance of “The Innocents
Abroad” his fame was secure. Thus the Snod-

xiv

INTRODUCTION

grass letters occupy a unique place in Mark
Twain’s career as an author, and undoubtedly
they had a definite influence on the selection
of that career.

The Keokuk Daily Post in 1856 was a
prosperous and enterprising newspaper. In
addition to its daily four page edition it issued
the Saturday Post, a weekly publication of
some literary pretentions. The Snodgrass let-
ters appeared in both the daily and Saturday
issues under the head of correspondence and,
it is to be assumed, were considered among
the paper’s banner contributions. The Satur-
day Post was the repository of stories scissored
from “Peterson’s Magazine” and other cur-
rent periodicals, letters from correspondents,
newspaper clippings from remote parts of the
country, and a smattering of local news.

A curious hodge-podge of reading matter.
One started perusal of a “fearful accident,”

xv

INTRODUCTION

apparently of local origin as date lines were
not used, only to learn some place in the body
of the article that the setting was Brooklyn
or New Orleans. Correspondence on a diver-
sity of themes was contributed by eager writ-
ers with fanciful names, from New England
to California. “Our New England Corre-
spondent” in particular had a fecund pen.
He gave a philosophical twist to his budget
of news and views from the northeast and
posed as a prophet of the weather and other
uncertain things.

Personal journalism was at its height. In
commenting on the nefarious actions or lying
statements of the editor of the opposition
sheet, the pilot of the Post’s destinies had
no qualms or quavers in saying that his con-
temporary was under the influence of liquor.
And liquor was liquor in those days. When
the editor was waylaid on South Third street
xvi

INTRODUCTION

by thugs, the attack, of course, was engi-
neered by the rival newspaper. This attack
was not mythical. It really occurred, and the
Post’s account of -the editorial assault is one
of the best pieces of unconscious humor that
a newspaper searcher would care to read on
a dull day. Here was the type of newspaper
and the kind of journalism that Mark Twain
was familiar with in the days when he was
nearing or had just reached his majority.

Keokuk claims no small share in the career
of the author. Florida, Mo., treasures his
birthplace} Hannibal remembers the youth-
ful Clemens, from whose life there came the
experiences that went into Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn; Hartford, Conn., claims
his later years, but the interest of Keokuk in
the great white humorist is no less real or
proprietory. There are his two years of resi-

INTRODUCTION

dence, his Snodgrass letters, and last, but cer-
tainly not least, his first after dinner speech.

The old Clemens home still stands in the
dam city; the building in which young Sam-
uel helped set type for the Keokuk city direc-
tory of 1856 likewise is standing; a museum
of Mark Twain relics has been placed in a
room in this building by a prosaic insurance
company which recently acquired the prop-
erty, and many mementoes of the humorist
are in the Keokuk Public Library. In the lat-
ter, for instance, one may find a complete set
of Mark Twains works, imposingly austere in
red leather, in a jealously guarded and per-
petually locked bookcase marked “Keokuk
Authors.” There also are the files of the Post,
containing the Snodgrass papers, and, prob-
ably most precious of all, the above-men-
tioned city directory, published by Samuel’s
brother, Orion.

xvm

INTRODUCTION

In that directory did Samuel identify him-
self as a printer? By no means. You will find
after his name the word ANTIQUARIAN,
in capital letters. Samuel set it that way. The
budding humorist was trying his hand.

To present a more detailed account of the
biographical facts connected with the Snod-
grass papers and the author’s Keokuk ex-
periences, the scene must shift to Hannibal,
where Samuel, a youth in his teens, is setting
type on Brother Orion’s newspaper, the Jour-
nal. Even then the boy wanted to see the
world, and after a quarrel with Orion, in
1853, he told his mother he was going to
leave home and seek his fortune. He was
then 18 years old. Thereupon he set out on
a journey that lasted fifteen months and that
took him to St. Louis, New York, Phil-
adelphia, Washington, and other large cities.
Like all wandering printers he earned his

INTRODUCTION

way by setting type in newspaper offices along
the way.

While Samuel was away, Orion’s Journal
failed, and the editor moved from Hannibal
to Muscatine, la., where he bought a news-
paper. It was to Muscatine, then, that the
youthful wanderer turned for a reconcilia-
tion with the family after his eastern pil-
grimage. Orion wished his brother to remain
in Muscatine but the young man, still restless
and believing that St. Louis offered better
prospects, soon departed for the Missouri
metropolis, where he worked in the compos-
ing room of the Evening News.

Meanwhile Orion had married and re-
moved to Keokuk, and when Brother Sam
came up from St. Louis for a visit, Orion
offered him a job at $5 a week and board.
Sam accepted. Orion’s office was located on
the third floor of 202 Main street, a build-

INTRODUCTION

ing once occupied by a wholesale fruit con-
cern, and now incorporated in the insurance
company’s plant. Henry Clemens and Dick
Hingham were other employes of Orion’s
printing shop at that time. The office pro-
vided a sleeping room for Henry and Sam,
and also a place to entertain Hingham and
Edward Brownell, clerk in a bookshop on
the first floor, who occasionally dropped in
for an evening’s chat.

Sam was a prodigious reader. He devoured
everything on which he could lay his hands,
and burned much midnight oil lying in bed
with a book propped up on his knee and a
pipe in his mouth. His ardor apparently was
not extended to other occupations, for he
seems to have had a reputation for laziness at
this period.

Life in Keokuk, however, soon palled on
the restless printer. This time it was South
xxi

INTRODUCTION

America that struck his fancy. Stories of the
survey of the upper Amazon by the Lynch
and Herndon expedition brought visions of
a fortune to be made from collecting cocoa
in Brazil. Acting on one of the sudden im-
pulses that characterized his life, he prepared
for the long journey, went to St. Louis to bid
good-bye to his mother, and then just as sud-
denly rushed back to Keokuk with a new idea
in his head. He was friendly with the man-
agement of the Post, to which he broached
the plan of sending travel letters to the paper
to help pay his way.

George Rees, head of the Post, liked the
idea well enough to offer $5 for each letter.
This was not ill pay for that day, and Sam-
uel, much pleased with the arrangement,
made a fresh start.

The first Snodgrass letter is dated St. Louis,
October 18, 1856 and was printed in the
xxii

INTRODUCTION

Saturday Post of November 1. This letter
may have been sent from St. Louis while Sam
was there bidding good-bye to his mother,
and may have served as an opening for his
arrangement for later ones, but definite in-
formation on this point is lacking. Mr. Paine,
apparently not knowing of the St. Louis let-
ter, speaks only of two that came from Cin-
cinnati, and indicates that the writer went to
Cincinnati by way of Quincy, Chicago and
Indianapolis on his second start, without
again visiting St. Louis. This would support
my deduction, but the matter is speculative.

At any rate the next communication is
dated Cincinnati, November 14, was pub-
lished in the Daily Post of November 29, and
again in the Saturday Post of December 6.
The third and last was written at Cincinnati,
March 14, 1857, and published in the Daily
xxiii

INTRODUCTION

Post of April 10, 1857, and in the Saturday
Post, April 1 8.

From Cincinnati Samuel had planned to
proceed either to New York or New Orleans
and then take boat for South America, but
the trip was abandoned.

This ends the story of the Snodgrass let-
ters, important at least as representing the
earliest work of the humorist that has been
preserved and the first for which he was paid.

Acknowledgment is made of generous aid
from Edward Fountain Carter of Keokuk,
who with pen and speech has entertained
thousands with a wit and dry humor not un-
like that of Mark Twain’s. Mr. Carter is
working on a history of Keokuk, which no
doubt will bring to light many interesting
facts concerning Mark T wain’s soj ourn there.

Charles Honce

THE ADVENTURES OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON

SNODGRASS

i

* SC^nkuk &aturkag Poaf **

November 1, 1856
CORRESPONDENCE

Saint Louis , Oct. 18, 1856
Mister Editors —

I want to enlighten you a leetle. I’ve been
to the Theater — and I jest want to tell you
how they do things down here to Saint Louis
— the Mound City, as they call it, owin to
its proximity to the Iron mountain and Pilot
Knob.

Last night as I was a settin in the parlor
of my Dutch boardin house in Fourth street
(I board among the crouters so as to observe
human natur in a forren aspeck) one of my
hairy friends proposed that we mought as
well go down and see Mr. Nealy play Julius
Cesar. Now I had see Mr. Bel ding’s Athen-
eum in Keokuk, and allers had a hankerin to
get inside of it — so I told the Dutchman

♦ ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

(who is for all the world like other humans,
eats like ’em, looks something like ’em, and
drinks a good deal more like ’em) that I was
anxious to patronize the Drammer.

We hadn’t gone more’n about six squares
till we come to a tremenjous dirt-colored
house, with carraiges, and omnibuses, and
niggers, and penut boys tearin around in front
of it, indiscriminate like, and Dutch (I
couldn’t put in his name without using up
too many of your type) said that was the
place. We bought some green tickets and fol-
lered some fellers up nigh unto four hundred
flights of stairs, and finally got into the con-
cern, which was built into three or four round
stories, with men and fiddlers in the first, along
with a right smart chance of ragged boys,eatin
penuts and cussin like militia majors. The
second story had men and gals in it, and
above there was nothing but masculine gen-

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

5

ders. We very naturally went into the second
story, and got round where the side of the
house (least ways I thought it was part of
the house) was painted to represent ♦Alexan-
dria, or Venice, or some other small village
settin in the water.

Gee Whillikens! Mister Editors, if you
could a been there jest then, you’d a thought
that either old Gabriel had blowed his horn,
or else there was houses to rent in that locality.
I reckon there was nigh onto forty thousand
people setting in that theatre — and sich an
other fannin, and blowin, and scrapon, and
gigglin, I hain’t seen since I arrived in the
United States. Gals! Bless your soul, there
was gals there of every age and sex, from
three months up to a hundred years, and
every cherubim of ’em had a fan and an

♦Alexandria, Missouri, a small river town a few miles south
of Keokuk.

6

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

opery glass and a — tongue — probably two or
three of the latter weepon, from the racket
they made. No use to try to estimate the
oceans of men and mustaches — the place
looked like a shoe brush shop.

Presently, about a thousand fellers com-
menced hammerin on the benches and hol-
lerin “Music,” and then the fiddlers laid them-
selves out, and went at it like forty millions
of wood sawyers at two dollars and a half a
cord. When they got through the people hol-
lered and stamped and whistled like they do
at a demercratic meeting, when the speaker
says something they don’t understand. Well,
thinks I, now I’ve got an old coarse comb
in my pocket, and I wonder if it wouldn’t
take them one-hoss fiddlers down a peg and
bring down the house, too, if Pd jest give
’em a tech of “Auld Lang Syne” on it. No
sooner said than done, and out come the old

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

7

comb and a piece of paper to put on it. I
“hem’d and haw’d” to attract attention, like,
and commenced Doo-doo — do-doo — do-doo.
“He, he, he,” snickered the gals. “Ha, ha,
ha,” roared the mustaches. “Put him out.”
“Let him alone.” “Go it, old Country.” “Say,
when did you get down? ” and the devil him-
self couldn’t a hearn that comb. I tell you
now, I was riled. I throwed the comb at a
little man that wasn’t sayin nothin and ris
right up. “Gentlemen and Ladies,” says I,
“I want to explain. I’m a peacable stranger
from Keokuk, and my name is Thomas Jef-
ferson Snodgrass — ” “Go it, Snodgrass.”
“Oh, what a name.” “Say, old Country,
whar’d you get that hat?” Darn my skin if
I wasn’t mad. I j erked off my coat and j umped
at the little man and, says I, “You nasty,
sneakin degenerate great grandson of a ring-
tailed monkey, I kin jest lam — ” ‘‘Hold on

8

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

there, my friend, jest pick up your coat and
follow me,” says a military lookin gentleman
with a club in his hand, tappin me on the
shoulder. He was a police. He took me out
and after I explained to him how St. Louis
would fizzle out if Keokuk got offended at
her, he let me go back, makin me promise
not to make any more music durin the eve-
ning. So I let ’em holler their darndest when
I took my seat, but never let on like I heard ’em.

Pretty soon a little bell rung, and they
rolled up the side of the house with Alexan-
dria on it, showin a mighty fine city, with
houses, and streets, and sich, but nary a fire
plug — all as natural as life. This was Rome.
Then a lot of onery lookin fellers come a
tearin down one of the streets, hurrayin and
swingin their clubs, and said they were going
to see Julius Cesar come into town. After
this they shoved Rome out of the way, and

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

9

showed the inside of a splendid palace, they
call it, and then some soldiers with bob-tailed
tin coats on (high water coats we used to call
’em in Keokuk) come in, then some gals
(with high water dresses on) and then some
more soldiers, and so on, gals and soldiers and
soldiers and gals, till it looked like all. the
Free Masons and Daughters of Temperance
in the world had turned out. Finally Mr.
Cesar hisself come in with a crown on, folks
called it, but it looked to my unsofisticated
vision like a hat without any crown about it.
He had a little talk with Antony, durin
which he was uncommon severe on a Mr.
Cashus (who was a standin within three feet
of him, but the derned fool didn’t hear a
word of it) reflectin on his personal appear-
ance — saying he had a “lean and hungry
look,” which was mighty mean in him to say,
though he was in fact, for the feller couldn’t

10

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

a looked more like a shadder if he’d a boarded
all his life at a Keokuk hotel. It’s no use
expatiating on every thing they done, so I’ll
jest mention a few of the things which I
happened to see when the gal that sot in
front of me took her turkey’s tail head dress
out of the way a minute to say somethin to
the owner of an invisable mustash that had
got wilted by coming out into the night air.

Arter a spell, a lot of fellers come out,
along with Mr. Cashus, and they all laid
their heads together like as many lawyers
when they are gettin ready to prove that a
man’s heirs ain’t got any right to his prop-
erty. Presently Mr. Brutus come a marchin
in as grand as a elephant in a menagerie of
monkeys, and then the people stamped like
Jehu. I kinda liked his looks. He ’peared
like a man and a gentleman. The gal with the
turkey’s tail clapped her spy-glass to her eye,

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

11

and says, “Ther’s Brutus — oh, what a mien
he has.” I didn’t like that, so leanin forward,
says I, “Madam, beggin your pardon, them
other fellers is a cpnsarned sight meaner’n
him. There’s that Cashus — ” “Hold your
tongue, sir,” yelled the wilted mustasch —
and in half a second there was enough dou-
ble-barrelled opery glasses leveled at me to
a blowed me into chunks no bigger’n a mus-
tard seed if they’d only been loaded. Remem-
berin the music scrape, I dried up and kept
quiet, letten the fellers in the lower story
holler at me as much as they wanted. Dr. H.
had been settin purty close to me, and I
thought I’d get him to explain this time, but
I found he’d gone out between the acts to
see a intimate friend, and hadn’t got back yet.

Cashus and the other fellers was for killin
Cesar and makin sausage meat of him cause
they couldn’t be kings and emperors while he

12

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

was alive, but Brutus didn’t like that way of
doin the thing — he jist wanted to kill him
like a Christian, jist for the good of Rome.
Then the people stomped again. It ’peared to
me kind of curus that they should kick up sich
a noise every time any body raved around and'
ripped out somethin hifalutin, but went half
asleep when anybody was tellin about poor
Cesar’s virtues.

Arter that, Misses Brutus come out when
the other fellars was gone, and like Mr. Clen-
nam at the Circumlocution Office, she “wanted
to know.” But it warn’t no use — Brutus
warn’t going to publish jest then, and it
’pears that wimmin was the only newspapers
they had in those days. You see all them fel-
lers was conspirators, got together to conspirit
a little again Cesar, and Brutus didn’t con-
sider it healthy to tell the secret to everybody.
(Mr. Editors, as I’m acquainted with a right

Main

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS 13

smart chance of gals in Keokuk, why, if it’s
jest as convenient, I’d ruther you wouldn’t
send your paper only to the men, this week.)

At last it come time to remove Mr. Cesar
from office, like they say the Buchaneers are
going to do the Fremonsters — extinguish him
entirely, — so all the conspirators got around
the throne, and directly Cesar come steppin
in, putting on as many airs as if he was mayor
of Alexandria. Arter he had sot on the throne
awhile they all jumped on him at once like
a batch of Irish on a sick nigger. He fell on
the floor with a percussion that would a made
him feel like he’d been ridin bare back on a
Keokuk livery stable horse for a month, if
he’d lived. When he drapped, the turkey-
tailed gal flinched, and grunted a sympathe-
tic “ugh,” and everybody in the neighbor-
hood laughed at her. But it wasn’t the gal’s
fault — she had for once got wrapped up in

14

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

the play, and I spose that was the only part
she entirely comprehended, cause I seen her
slip down in the street the other day.

Finally, the play was done, and I reached
over to the wilted mustache, and says I:
“Squire, can you tell me what Mr. Cesar’s
agoin to play next?” He wheeled hisself
around sudden, and says he: “Don Cesar —
he be damn’d, sir.” “Oh, gracious sakes, don’t
swear so hard,” says I, horrerfied. “I ain’t
swearin,” says he, and he pinted out the play
on the bill of fare — “I said Don Cesar de
Bazan, sir.” I seen through it, then, in a min-
nit, so I told him it was sufficient — no apolo-
gies wasn’t necessary.

I changed my seat now, and took a pew in
front, so I could see plumb back into the
kitchen of the concern, if they should take
away the cities and woods and things. Proppin
my feet up on the railin, I thought I’d take

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

IS

it comfortable like. Jest then, them fellers
in the pit, as they call it (and I guess, Mr.
Editors, some of ’em ’ll get into a dem sight
deeper pit than that, afore you git to heaven)
went to hollerin “Boots. Boots. Boots.” like
all natur. Thinks I, that’s fun, and I went
to hollerin too, though I didn’t know what
it meant. When I got at it they all pitched
in louder’n ever, and that gal like to a shook
all her tail feathers out a laughin. Dutch
says to me, “Take your feet down, you dern
ledderhet, it’s you vot makes all dish fuss.”
Dang my buttons if I wasn’t a rarin and
chargin when I found they was makin fun
of me, and I ris right up, puttin my hat on
the extreme side of my head, and stickin my
thums in the armholes of my vest, and com-
menced a little oration, so — “Gentlemen and
Ladies — I’m a peacable stranger from Keo-
kuk, and my name is Thomas Jefferson — ”

16

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

“Put him out.” “Hurrah for old Keokuk.”
“Go it, Snodgrass,” yelled the purgatory fel-
lers, and in a twinklin a couple of police had
sot me down in the street, advisin me to go
to the devil and not come back there any
more. Now, Mister Editors, Saint Louis may
fizzle out and be derned.

Yours, with lacerated feelins,

Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass.

THE ADVENTURES OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON

SNODGRASS

n

ICpdfeuk fiaUgf oat**

Saturday Morning , Nov. 29, 1856

FOR THE POST

Snodgrass’ Ride on the Railroad

Cincinnati, Nov. 14, 1857
Mister Editors —

Well, now, dang me skin if I don’t feel
rather curus, “so far from home and all them
that’s dear to me,” as the bordin-school gals
say the first time they write to their friends
— still, I ain’t takin on about it to speak of
— all the difference I kin see is, I feel a little
more religious, maybe, when I get a little
sick, than I used to.

You know arter going down there to St.
Louis, and seein so many wonderful things,
I wanted to see more — so I took a notion to
go a travelin, so as to see the world, and then
write a book about it — a kind o daily journal

20

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

like — and have all in gold on the back of it,
“Snodgrass’ Dierrea”, or somethin of that
kind, like other authors that visits forren
parts. I couldn’t keep still so at last I went
and got a map, so as to find out the shortest
way to Cincinnati, and after examining of it
keerfully, I come to the conclusion that about
the best way was to go back to Keokuk, and
from Keokuk to Quincy, and from Quincy to
Chicago, and from Chicago to Indianapolis,
and then down to the end of my ultimate des-
tination. And the result of it all is that I am
here, safe and sound, and I would recom-
mend everybody to take the same road, and
derned if they won’t see sights.

Now, as I’m going to say somethin about
this voyage, I guess I’ll commence at Keo-
kuk, bein as that’s the general startin pint
of the inhabitants of North America. I went
down one night to the railroad office there,

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

21

purty close onto the *Laclede House, and
bought about a quire of yaller paper, cut up
into tickets — one for each railroad in the
United States, I thought, but I found out ar-
terwards, that the Alexandria and Boston air-
line was left out — and then got a baggage
feller to take my trunk down to the boat,
where he spilled it out on the levee, bustin it
open and shakin out the contents, consisting
of “guides” to Chicago, and “guides” to Cin-
cinnati, and travelers guides, and all kinds of
sich books, not excepting a “guide to heaven,”
which last aint much use to a fellar in Chi-
cago, I kin tell you. Finally, that thar fast
packet quit ringing her bell, and started down
the river — but she hadn’t gone mor’n a mile,
till she run clean up on top of a sand bar, whar
she stuck till plum one o’clock, spite of the
Captain’s swearin, — and they had to set the

♦An old Keokuk hotel.

22

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

whole crew to cussin at last, afore they got
her off. That sand bar was a aggravating
thing, anyhow, as we was runnin a race with
an old fellar with a carpet bag, who calcu-
lated it was good exercise to walk to Quincy,
and he got about half a day’s start of us.
However, when we did get off, you ought to
a seen that old steamboat slinging sand with
them wheels of hern. She’d got her Irish up
now, and din’t keer a scratch for bars and
nothin else — and away she went walkin
down the river on four inches of water, and
jumpin over three acre patches of dry land,
jest as though she had legs. The old man and
her had a mighty tight race of it, and she
only saved herself by takin a nigh cut across
the bottom, comin in fifteen minutes ahead.
We had to get off the boat here, and go in
the omnibuses to the cars. My fare down to
Quincy was a dollar and a quarter, and por-

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

23

terage about four dollars and a half, which
is mighty moderate, and people oughtn’t to
complain, for though the packet company
makes money, they can’t afford to hire por-
ters at ten dollars a month, and no reasonable
human being could expect to have his over-
coat keerfully preserved into the baggage
room, while he’s eating dinner, without payin
a quarter for it — it’s worth nine cents a minit.

When we got to the depo, I went around
to get a look at the iron hoss. Thunderation. It
wasn’t no more like a hoss than a meetin
house. If I was going to describe the animule,
I’d say it looked like — derned if I know what
it looked like, unless it was a regular old he-
devil, snortin fire and brimstone out of his
nostrils, and puffin out black smoke all round,
and pantin, and heavin, and swellin, and a
chawin up red hot coals like they was good.
A feller stood in a little house like, feedin

24

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

him all the time, but the more he got the
more he wanted, and the more he blowed and
snorted. After a spell the feller catched him
by the tail, and great Jericho, he set up a yell
that split the ground more’n a mile and a
half and the next minit I felt my legs a wag-
gin, and found myself at t’other end of the
string of vehickles. I wasn’t skeered , but I
had three chills and a stroke of palsy in less
than five minutes, and my face had a curus
brownish-yaller-green-bluish color in it,
which was perfectly unaccountable.

‘‘Well,” says I, “comment is super -flu-
ous.” And I took my seat in the nearest wagin,
or car, as they call it — a consarned great long
steamboat-lookin thing with a string of little
pews down each side, big enough to hold
about a man and a half. Jest as I sat down the
hoss hollered twice, and started off like a
streak, pitchin me head first at the stomach

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

25

of a big Irish woman, and she give a tremen-
jus grunt and then ketched me by the head
and crammed me under the seat, and when I
got out and staggered to another seat, the cars
was a jumpin and tearin along at nigh unto
forty thousand miles an hour and everybody
was a bobbin up and down like a mill saw, and
every wretch of ’em had his mouth stretched
wide open and looked like they was a laffin,
but I couldn’t hear nothin, the cars kept sich
a racket.

Bimeby they stopped all at once, and then
sich a laff busted out of them passengers as
I never hearn before. Laffin at me too, that’s
what made me mad, and I was mad as thun-
der, too. I ris up, and shakin my fist at ’em,
says I, “Ladies and gentlemen, look a here,
I’m a peaceable stranger — ” and away went
the train, went like the small pox was in town,
jerkin me down in the seat with a whack like

26

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

I’d been thrown from the moon, and their
cussed mouths flopped open and the fellers
went to bobbin up and down again. I put on
an air of magnanimous contempt like, and
took no more notice of ’em and very naturally
went to bobbin up and down myself.

I jest took a peep out of the winder, and
drat my buttons, if I wasn’t astonished at the
way that rail road was a gittin over the
ground. I tell you, Mr. Editors, it made a rail
fence look like a fine tooth comb, and the air
actually turned blue in the vicinity. Thinks I
if that devil at the other end of the train’s
going home tonight, it won’t take him long
to get there. Bimeby the second clerk came, a
staggerin in hollerin “Tickets. Tickets.”
When he came to me I told him I wasn’t go-
ing to stop — I was going to Chicago. “Well,
give me your ticket.” “Not by a derned sight,”
says I. “You can’t come any o them tricks on

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

27

me, old feller. You can’t get my ticket and
then stick me ashore at the first wood yard
your old cook stove stops at.” First he got mad,
and then he got tickled, but when he found he
wasn’t making much, he like to a skeered me
to death, threatening to throw me overboard
— so I yielded in a condescending manner,
and traded my yaller ticket for a red one,
which wasn’t Sunday school fashion, where
you get ten red tickets for one of tother color.
Arter that, he made a regular practice of
comin in every two minutes hollerin “Tick-
ets.” It’s my opinion he’s a dam nuisance,
and ought to be turned out of the company.
If a feller was to travel on that road for a
week, that clerk and the peanut boy would
pester him to death between ’em.

It didn’t take me long to git used to the
cars, and then I begun to put on airs like an
old traveler — stickin my feet over the back

28 ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

of the next pew, puttin my ticket in my hat
band, pretending to go to sleep, and so on,
and never lettin on to keer a cent where we
was going to. So, when a feller asked me if I
thought we would the connection, not wantin
to appear green, I told him “No, dern the
connection,” but I couldn’t imagin what that
“connection” meant, no how. Another fel-
ler asked me what was the next town, and
I told him Chicago. (I didn’t know the name
of any other place on the road, and I had to
tell him somethin, to keep up appearances),
and the blasted fool got off there. Served him
right — he’d no business going so far away
from home without havin his mother alQng.
At last, after skimmin over a pooty big
“arm” of Lake Michigan, they call it —
where I couldn’t see nothin solid for the cars
to rest on — we got to that place Chicago,
which they say is Old Nick’s local agency

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

29

for the world. The cars run into a tremen-
dous house, about as big as ^Warsaw, and as
soon as they stopped, mor’n three hundred
fellers come a cracking their whips around
and hollering: “Baggage for the Massasoit
House” and “Carriages for United States
Hotel” and “Passengers for the Little Mi-
ami Railroad,” “Here’s carriage for G’lena
’n Sh’cago Railroad,” ‘‘Gentlemen going east
take Suth’n Mish’gan Indianan Railroad,”
and so on, every feller hollering as loud as
the very Dickens would let him. Directly a
feller commenced yellin “This way, gentle-
men. This way with your checks. This way.”
Then another feller commenced grabbin up
trunks and looking at a brass thing hangin to
’em, and hollerin out the number he found
on it — then as soon as some feller in the
crowd would hand in a number like it, he’d

♦Warsaw, Illinois, five miles south of Keokuk.

30

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

slam the trunk down with all his might in
the depo — and he was a pooty strong feller
too.

“Two hundred and forty-two, Nor’n
cross,” “Here — 242” (Slam goes the trunk.)
‘‘Nine hundred and sixty-eight, G’lena and
Chicago.” “968.” “Four hundred an thirty-
seven, Ill’noy central.” “All right 437.”
“Say, let that baggage alone.” “Where’s my
hat?” “Oh, thunder, who’s seen my wife?”
“Gentlemen goin south take seats in the train
at the far side of depo — going east, take seats
in cars on middle track.” “Put down that
trunk — b’longs to Mishigan Central.” “You’r
a liar.” “You’r another,” and away they go
at it, pitchin into each other like dogs, till
the depo police pitches into them and takes
’em off to the watch house.

Now its amusin to notice how keerful
them fellers is with baggage (that’s a kind

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

31

of sarcastified remark — understand). I see
’em knock a hole in the floor — 3 inch oke
plank — with a trunk not much bigger’n a
carpet sack — and that’s a unpolished fact. I
shivered there considerable of a spell, waitin
for my baggage, and finally got the bottom
half of my trunk, what had the check on it,
and bimeby my vallis made its appearance,
with shirts and cravats hangin out at one end,
and socks and collars at t’other — lookin con-
siderable like a Irishman that’s jest got out
of a New Orleans ’lection riot — and dem my
cats if I’d a knowd it was a vallis at all, only
for a piece of my name what got left on the
end of it, (by mistake, I spose) for it didn’t
look no more like that article than a steem-
bote. After I got the balance of my trunk, I
shoved out for the Massasawit House, and
put up for a spell.

32

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

I know it’s fashionable to describe hotels,
and tell how much they cost, but I reckon it
aint necessary for me to do so — -specially as
I don’t know nothin about that hotel, only —
they charge enuff. Chicago’s a great place,
but I ain’t going to say nothin about it, only
jest this, that when you feel like tellin a fel-
ler to go to the devil, tell him to go to Chicago
— it’ll anser every purpose, and is perhaps, a
leetle more expensive.

Next day I started for Cincinnati — and as
this letter is growed pooty long, I’ll only say
that there’s more blacksmith shops in Indiana
than anywhere else in the world, and I cal-
culate we stopped at every dem one there'was
in the whole state. The cars would run about
three hundred yards, and holler and stop —
and so on till we got to Indianapolis, and took
the midnight thunder-an-ligtnin train, and
arter that we come a tearin down here at the

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

33

rate of four hundred and thirty-seven miles a
minute, leavin the rail track red hot behind
us — in some places it melted.

Your’s, what’s left of me.

Snodgrasss.

This letter also teas printed in the
Keokuk Saturday Post of December 6, 18 56

THE ADVENTURES OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON

SNODGRASS

hi

-fflp ICenfeuk Saily^nat*-

April 10, 1857
CORRESPONDENCE

WRITTEN FOR THE KEOKUK POST

Snodgrass, in a Adventure

Cincinnati, March 14, 1857
Mister Editors: —

It mought be that some people think your
umble sarvent has “shuffled off this mortal
quile” and bid an eternal adoo to this subloo-
nary atmosphere — nary time. He aint dead,
but sleepeth. That expreshun are figerative,
and go to signerfy that he’s pooty much quit
scribblin.

It’s been cold here, Mr. Editors. And when
I asserts that fact, people can take it for
granted I mean its been mighty nasty par-
ticler cold — a considerable sight colder’n cof-
fee at the seckond table. Fust it snowed, and

38

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

snowed, and snowed, tell you actilly couldn’t
see the mud in the streets. Next it kivered up
and blotted out the sines, and continued on
tell all the brick houses looked like the v frame
ones, and visy versy — and at last, when it did
stop, you couldn’t a told Cincinnati from the
Rocky Mountains in January. The Ohio river
was friz to the bottom — which warn’t no
great shakes in the freezing line, considering
that krick aint never got more’n forty barls
of water in it, no how — and the steamboats
were friz to the airth, and the Dutch was friz
to the sour-kraut kegs, and the preachers was
friz to ther parsonages, and somehow I think
the Devil hisself got ketched and had to win-
ter in the durned uncomfortable town.

Well, in course, coal went up and fires
went down. People couldn’t neither beg, nor
steal, nor borry the preshus truck — and buyin
was clean out of the question, seein that they

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

39

asked seventeen cents an ounce for it, and not
keerin much about sellin it anyhow. Things
got to sich a pass that the poor porshuns of
the sitizens wanted, the Mayor to discontinuer
the use of the steam fire injuns, cause when a
house would conflaggerate, them eternal noo-
sances would drowned it out afore they could
git warm. Gold dust warnt worth no more’n
coal dust, and in course the blasted Jews got
to adulterating the fuel. They mixed it up
half and half — a tun of coal dust to a tun of
ground pepper, and sold it for the genuine
article. But they ketched them at it at last,
and they do say that some of the indignant
inhabitants took a hoss whip and castigated
one of ’em till he warn’t fit to assoshiate with
Jeemes Gordon Bennett hisself.

After a spell, the City Council concluded
to try ther hand at relievin the sufferin com-
munity. Thy laid in a stock of coal, and ad-

40

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

vertised to sell cheap and to poor devils only.
But it was curus to see how the speckalation
worked. Here’s a instance. A indigent Irish
woman — a widow with nineteen children and
several at the breast, accordin to custom, went
to the Mayor to get some of that public coal.
The Mayor he gin her an order on the Mar-
shal; the Marshal gin her an order on the
Recorder; Recorder sent her to the Constable ;
Constable sent her to the Postmaster; Post-
master sent her to the County Clerk, and so
on, tell she run herself half to death, and friz
the balance, while she had sixteen places to
go yet, afore she could git the coal. J3ut that
is only just half of the little circumstance.
You see that widder had been trotting after
Recorders and Postmasters and sich for con-
siderable more’n a good while — and the Cur-
oner’s jury that sot on her scraped up the
orders she’d got and sold ’em to the paper

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

41

mill at three cents a pound, clearin about four
dollars and a half by the speculation. Now
only think what a mercantile education
mought a done for the unfortunit daughter
of Eve. (I say “daughter of Eve,” meanin it
as kinder figerative or poetastical like, for I
forgit, now, whether the Irish come from our
Eve, or not.)

I reckon I orter tell you about the little
adventer I had tother night, but drat if it
don’t work me worse’n castor oil just to think
of it.

I was a santerin up Walnut street, feelin
pooty nice, and hummin to myself that good
old Metherdis hymn I learnt at class meetin
in Keokuk, commencin:

“Boston isn’t in Bengal,

And flannel drawers aint made of tripe j

Lobsters don’t wear specs at all,

And cows don’t smoke the German pipe,”

42

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

when a young lady with a big basket birsted
in on my revery. “I say, mister,” says she, “is
your name — ” “Snodgress,” says I, wonderin
how on airth she knowed me. “The very man
I wanted to see,” says she. “The dev —
dickens,” says I. “Yes, and I’ve always heam
you was sich a good, kind feller, that I allers
wanted to have a talk with you.” “By jings,
madam, I am glad to hear you talk so. I’m
just as much at your service as if I was your
own grandmother.” “Yes, you’r just the man,
and now I’ve got something to tell you. But
bless my life (lookin skeered), I’ve left my
portmoney in the grocery around the corner.
If you would please to hold my basket tell I
go and git it, Mr. Snobrags, I’ll never forget
you.” “With the all-firedest pleasure in the
world, madam — but Snodgrass,” says I, cor-
rectin her as I took the big basket. And away
she went around the corner, leavin me as

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

43

happy as a dog with two tails. Thinks I, I’ll
galant that gal home, and then (she’s already
struck with my personal appearance) she’ll
ask me to come again — spect she’s rich as a
Jew. No doubt the old man’ll take a likin to
me (changing the heavy basket to tother
arm) and he’ll ask me to call around. In
course I’ll come, and come often, too, and
when about a dozen of that gal’s sweethearts
find me a shinin up so numerous they’ll get
mad and after a spell they’ll challenge me
(changin the basket again) . I’ll jest take ’em
across the river to Kaintuck and shoot ’em
down like pole cats. That’ll fetch the old
man. He’ll think I’m the devil hisself.
He’ll come and tel me how many banks and
railroads he owns, and ask me to marry his
darter. And I’ll do it — but hold on — by the
eternal smash, where’s that gal took herself
off to? Seems to me she’s having a arful chase

44

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

arter that portmoney of her’s. So I shove out
arter her, which was dern sensible, considerin
she’d been gone a hour and a half.

Pooty soon there commenced the eternalist,
confoundest, damnationist kickin in that bas-
ket, follered by the eternalist, confoundest
squallin that you ever heard on. I run to the
gas lamp and jerked off the kiver, and there
was the ugliest, nastiest, oneriest he-baby I
ever seed in all my life. “Sold, by Jeminy.
Dern the baby. Oh Lordy, Lordy, Lordy,”
says I, blubberin like a three-year-old. “Dang
yer skin, don’t make sich a racket.”

But it wouldn’t do to stand there with that
basket full of baby lungs, raisin the devil and
the perlice all over the neighborhood. So I
gathered up the traps and broke for home like
a quarter- hoss, cussin at every jump and mixin
it up with what the woman said, and grittin
my teeth like a tobbacker worm. “Often

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

45

hearn of me — lost her portmoney — kind,
good man.” O Lordy, Snodgrass, you’re a
fool. “Never forget me.” Wish to jeewhilli-
kins I could forget her. O Lordy, what’ll I
do with the baby? Snodgrass, you’re a blasted,
eternal, onmitigated fool.” And so I ranted
and cussed tell I got home to my own room.

Then the thing quit hollerin and I locked
the door. Becomin a leetle composed, I took
the tongs and lifted the critter out of the
basket, so as to get a good look at it. Well,
the varmint kept so quiet that it kinda fooled
me, and I thought I might ventur on makin
a face at it, throwin my hands up like claws
and makin a leetle small jump at it, jest by
way of revenge, you know. Now right thar is
where Snodgrass missed it. Sich a yell as
skeered animals sot up — shucks, a shiveree
wasn’t nothing longside it. In course I had to
grab it, to keep it from wakin the dead before

46

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

Resurrection Day, and I walked it, and tossed
it, and cussed it, till the sweat run off my car-
cass to the amount of a barl at least. O Lordy,
wam’t I in agony of sufferin?

“Sh-h-h,” says I, tossin the brat, “there
now, there, there, your mother is coming
(singing a leetle occasionally) j ’ockey by
baby, in the tree top, when the wind blows —
there now, poor little dear — when the wind
blows — oh, darn your everlastin yaller skin,
won’t you never dry up? ” But it wasn’t no go.
The baby wouldn’t quit cryin, so I sot baby,
basket and all under the bed and piled old
clothes on ’em, tell I was pooty certin the
cretur wouldn’t freeze, if it didn’t smuther,
and I turned in.

Well, Mr. Editors, it’s no use harryin up
my feelings by dwellin on the onpleasant epox
of my kareer, therefore I’ll jest mention that
arter standing guard over that infant all the

JEFFERSON SNODGRASS

47

next day to keep the sarvent girls from gettin
a sight of it, I was ketched by a perliceman
about midnight down to the river, trying to
poke the dang thiijg through a hole in the ice.
They raised the dickins about it the day arter.
The crowd in the court room let out their
opinyons pooty free, and I tell ye I was riled
when I hearn a young lady say that “the poor
innocent little cherub ort to be put out of the
reach of its onnateral father.” “Onnateral,
thunder,” says I, bustin out all at wunst.
“Fine the prisoner ten dollars for contempt of
court,” yells the judge. “Fine and be — ” but
they didn’t let me finish. They lugged me off
and locked me up, and never let me out till I
promised —

No, sir I swar I wont’ tell what I prom-
ised them sharks. But twixt you and me
somethin dark’s goin to happen. It pears to
me that that baby’ll lam to swim yit afore its

48

ADVENTURES OF THOMAS

six weeks older — pervided it don’t perish in
the attempt.

I reckon I’ll bid you adoo, now, Mister
Editors, and go on tryin to find out the meanin
of the verse that says: “Of such is the king-
dom of Heaven,” and several other passyges.
“Onnateral father,” dern my skin, I wish I
war, well, never mind.

Yours, et cetery,

Snodgrass.

The foregoing also was 'printed in the
Keokuk Saturday Post of April 18, 1857

A CELEBRATED VILLAGE! IDIOT

by James O’Donnell Bennett

A Ir* Bennett , staff member of the Chi-
cago Tribune, recently •visited Keokuk in
the course of a jaunt through €< Chicago-
land ,” that vast midwestern territory of
•which the city by the inland sea is the me-
tropolis . His story of that visit is embodied
in the following illuminating sketch, which
throws new facets of light on that eccentric
personage, Orion Clemens, called by Air .
Bennett “a celebrated village idiot” The
sketch is published with permission of Air .
Bennett and T he Tribune .

A CELEBRATED VILLAGE IDIOT

‘‘Mother,” said, one of Mrs. Felix Hughes*
sons on an evening when we were sitting to-
gether on the heights that overlook the great
river at Keokuk, “just what was Orion Clem-
ens’ occupation when he lived here? ”

Mrs. Hughes, mother of rampant, roman-
tic, rebel Rupert and of Felix the singer, and
of Howard the now gone inventor, replied in
her tentative way, “Why, he was a kind of a
lawyer, wasn’t he?”

Felix the singer laughed and patted the
lady’s hand. “Mother,” says he, “you’ve hit
it. That’s just the kind of a lawyer he was!”

From Hannibal to Muscatine, which is
120 miles as the crow flies, you hear more
stories about Orion Clemens, who was Mark
Twain’s elder brother, than you hear about

52 A CELEBRATED

Chief Keokuk or Mr. Justice Miller, Keokuk
lawyer, whom President Lincoln appointed
to the United States Supreme court and whom
men called “the greatest constitutional law-
yer since Joseph Story,” or even about Mark
himself.

Orion died 29 years ago, but his memory,
like many of his intellectual stirrings, still is
green. Old men will say to you as you yarn
along with them about him, “He was the
damdest fool and the honestest man I ever
knew!”

He lived in several towns alqng the west
bank of the river, and in each and every one
of them he became the crowned specimen of
village idiot. But village philosopher and
village helper also; at everybody’s beck and
call, and as printer, editor, lawyer, chicken
raiser, and what not — mostly what not —
more eager to serve mankind free than for

VILLAGE IDIOT

S3

price. He could write, too; helped Mark in
the composition of “Roughing It,” and was
a fluent, forcible speaker.

The keenest deprivation Mark Twain in-
flicted on a world that treated him well was
not putting Orion into a book. Orion was will-
ing, and once, only a few days before his death
in Keokuk, knowing the general scheme of
a tale his brother had on the stocks, he wrote
him, “I would fit in as a fool character.” Then
he went on to sketch the kind of fool he was,
but not all fool, he pleaded, and offered this
precious passage in extenuation of many fool-
eries:

“When a farmer took my father’s of-
fer for some chickens ‘under advise-
ment’ till the next day, I said to myself,
‘Would Napoleon Bonaparte have taken
under advisement till the next day an
offer to sell him some chickens? ’ ”

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A CELEBRATED

For putterers — like me — there is sharp
chastisement in that.

One of the classic Keokuk stories about
Orion concerns the written report he made
when he was treasurer of the Congregational
church. Big Bill Sage of the State Central
Savings bank and the Iowa State Insurance
Company Mutual — second oldest insurance
company west of the Mississippi; founded
1 855 — told it to me and swears it’s true. ’Tis
short.

Orion rose in meeting and submitted his
annual report as church treasurer. It ran:
“Receipts, $1,827.34.

“Expenditures, $1,798.76.

“Balance, $28.58.

“Ain’t got it. Must have spent it.”

Another time Orion’s wife, going away for
the day, warned him she was leaving his mid-
day meal on a plate in the pantry. She also

VILLAGE IDIOT

55

left on a lower shelf a pan of dough that was
to rise in due time.

- Returning at night she asked, “Did you
find your lunch? ”

“Yep.”

“Was it all right?”

“Yep — except, well, it seemed kind of
heavy? ”

Once Orion, financed by Mark, started a
chicken farm in Keokuk, selling to the citi-
zenry for $ 1 .25 a pair fowls that it cost $1.60
a pair to raise. The experiment lasted two
years, at the end of which it had cost Mark
$6,000. Then he closed out and shut up.

I said Mark never put moony, dreamy,
loony, fanciful, saintly Orion in a book. Well,
he did sketch him in one — his posthumous
“Autobiography” — and the sketching, which
starts at page 258 of the second volume of
that vagrant work and is resumed in 6-page

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A CELEBRATED

lots from time to time, is beautifully and ten-
derly and yet most comically done.

“In all my seventy years,” says the younger
brother concerning Orion’s personality, “I
have not met a twin of it One of his char-

acteristics was eagerness. He woke with eag-
erness about some matter or other every morn-
ing; it consumed him all day; it perished in
the night. . . . Throughout his long life he was
always trading religions and enjoying the

change of scenery Except in the matter of

grounded principles he was as unstable as
water. . . It had been his habit for a great
many years to change his religion with his
shirt. . . . He never lost a cent for anybody,
and never made one for himself. . . . And he
was beloved all his life in whatsoever com-
munity he lived.”

Orion married a Keokuk girl after she had
given walking papers to a Quincy, 111., girl to

VILLAGE IDIOT

57

whom Orion had simultaneously engaged
himself. About the wife Mark once released
this gem: “She was a good woman, but her
vanity was pretty large and inconvenient.”

The value of Orion — name pronounced by
our Keokuk neighbors, and by the Clemens
family, with the accent on the first syllable
instead of on the second as in the name of the
constellation for which he was christened —
the value of him, I think, to us lovers of let-
ters and of human nature is that he was Mark
himself in caricature, and caricature, as Miss
Cissie Loftus and Miss Elsie Janis have often
shown us, is a valid and valuable method of
criticism — literary or otherwise.

There is a Mark Twain shrine in Keokuk.
Big Bill Sage, who affects to be a fifteen min-
ute egg — hard as that — devised it when he
and Judge Logan had to remodel and enlarge
the old building at 202 Main street in which

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A CELEBRATED

Orion and Mark were setting type, 70 years
ago. In the handsome directors’ room of the
remodeled structure Mr. Sage — do you catch
that “Mister,” Brother William? — Mr. Sage
has hung the priceless portrait in oils of Mark
which shows him at the age of 22. In it he
wears a winged collar, and a stock, and auburn
locks, and side whiskers! The face that later
became so leonine is here heavy and stodgy.

On the third floor of the building, near the
spot where Mark used to set type, are dis-
played the printer’s case at which the great
man worked and his composing stick, and
over the case hangs, framed, that withering
interview on Theodore Roosevelt, which he
gave The Chicago Tribune in March, 1908
— the blast containing the phrase, “this showy
charlatan” and prophesying what the colonel,
whom Mark loathed, would do “after he has
done hunting other wild animals heroically in

VILLAGE IDIOT

59

Africa with the safeguards of a park of artil-
lery and the advertising equipment of a brass
band.”

However, we must push on from Keokuk,
although I could write another piece about it
which I think would interest you — so many
interesting people and things did I encounter
there. But The Tribune’s last admonition to
me was, “Now, don’t settle in any of these
towns, nor disappear, the way you did in
Roumania.”

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